“There was a very loud noise and a really bright light,” Catherine Mayer, a passenger on the Icelandair flight, told ABC News.

Mayer, founder of the British Women’s Equality Party, was on her way to London to vote for her own party for the first time, on May 5. When the plane dropped through the clouds, the aircraft flew into a storm and the lightning struck.

“I thought: ‘I can’t die. I have to vote,’” Mayer said.

After the plane landed safely at about 8 p.m., the pilot said, “You may have noticed a lightning strike,” according to Mayer, adding that everyone started laughing.

“It happened so close to the point of landing that we didn’t have much time to worry about it,” she said. “When we landed, everyone went, ‘Oh, my God, we just survived a lightning strike.’”

An Icelandair spokesman confirmed the incident, saying the aircraft was inspected after landing for safety reasons. “The lightning strike did not cause damage to the aircraft and the aircraft was returned to service after that inspection,” he